Heroes & Villains

A Rich Bioethics
Public Policy, Biotechnology, and the Kass Council
Adam Briggle
University of Notre Dame Press, $30, 240 pp.

In the apocalyptic closing lines of After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre worries about the contemporary West’s decline into moral barbarism.

If my account of our moral condition is correct...we ought also to conclude that for some time now we too have reached that turning point [from civility to barbarism].... This time however the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time.

According...

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